


Patronus Material

by OgdensOldFirewhiskey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Charms Class (Harry Potter), F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Mutual Pining, Patronus Charm (Harry Potter), Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25387057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OgdensOldFirewhiskey/pseuds/OgdensOldFirewhiskey
Summary: Well, this is a bit grim, isn’t it? Lily thought. She couldn’t think of a single happy memory. Was her life truly this mundane?Lily has trouble conjuring a Patronus until she thinks about a spectacled idiot with messy black hair. Have some seventh-year, canon-compliant, Jily.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 32
Kudos: 278





	Patronus Material

_Well, this is a bit grim, isn’t it?_ Lily thought. She couldn’t think of a single happy memory. Was her life truly this mundane?

She tried to ignore her classmates around her beginning to mutter “ _Expecto Patronum_ ,” as she cast wildly about for something, any moment where she had felt truly euphoric.

“What are you thinking of?” Mary whispered, casting a covert glance at Flitwick to make sure he was otherwise occupied.

“Haven’t got a clue,” Lily replied, shaking her head.

“Oh thank Merlin, I was starting to feel a bit pathetic over here.”

“The only thing I can think of is buying a new quill at Scrivenshafts.”

Mary snorted. “Alright, I feel less pathetic now.”

Lily grinned. “You must have a happy memory with Stebbins, mustn’t you?”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Mary sighed. “I don’t know, somehow he doesn’t feel like _Patronus material_ if you know what I mean.”

“Please never tell him that.”

“I should probably ditch him.”

“Probably.”

“You reckon?”

Lily gave her friend a “What do you think?” sort of look, and then sighed again. “I don’t reckon our sordid love lives are a great foundation for Patronuses.”

“Mm,” Mary agreed. “Home?”

“Hmm,” Lily pretended to ponder it. “I could think about my sister who hates me, my dead father, or my depressed mother. Which do you think would work best?”

Mary grimaced. “Definitely Scrivenshafts.”

“I do like their sugar quills.”

“Ladies!” called Flitwick, striding over to them as quickly as his tiny legs could carry him. “That’s quite enough chit chat, let’s see you give it a try.”

Feeling alarmed that she had come up with nothing better than bloody sugar quills, Lily settled on something standard – the day Professor McGonagall had delivered her letter and told her she would be going to Hogwarts.

Thinking carefully of the elation she’d felt at the thought that _Sev had been right_ , she said “Expecto patronum!”

Nothing whatsoever happened. Flitwick smiled encouragingly, “That’s quite alright. I’ve never taught a student who’s gotten it on their first try. Just keep at it!”

He strode away. Lily was hardly surprised it hadn’t worked – so many of her memories of those times were tainted with all that had come after it with Severus and Petunia. Hardly happy memories, were they?

Mary’s hadn’t worked either. They shrugged at one another in commiserating defeat.

Lily abandoned any thoughts of quills or Hogwarts letters, and tried thinking more abstractly, of her friends, of the simple joy she felt walking around the grounds of Hogwarts, of biting into treacle tart.

The next time she tried it, she produced a thick silver mist.

“Ooh,” squealed Mary. “You’ve made something, look at you!”

Lily smiled. “I guess treacle tart is officially superior to sugar quills.”

“Interesting. I’ll let you know when I find something better than _Stebbins_.”

By the end of the lesson, nobody had produced anything more than silver mist, though James Potter had managed to produce mist that was almost opaque, something Flitwick was quick to point out as an intermediate stage of producing a corporeal Patronus.

She and Mary left the classroom trailing after James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus, all of whom were laughing together about something.

“D’you reckon it’ll be Prongs, when it’s fully formed?” she heard Sirius ask James. “Or perhaps something more fitting, like… a cock?”

James shoved him playfully. “I’d be proud to have a cock for a Patronus, thank you very much.”

“Oh, we all know how proud you are of your cock, Potter,” she called behind him, teasingly.

He whipped around and shot her with a glare that was entirely undermined by the crooked smirk on his face. “Well, you would know best, Evans.”

She’d used to find these comments to be insufferable, but now she couldn’t fight the smile off her face. “I think your bed curtains would know _best_ , actually.”

Sirius gave a great bark of laughter, causing James to shoot him a filthy look. “Betrayal.”

“Sorry, mate,” said Sirius, clapping him on the shoulder. “It was only funny because of the devastating accuracy.”

Lily grinned at them, feeling fond of them all. She couldn’t quite recall how her hatred of James Potter had transformed into something resembling friendship. It seemed that one day she had been telling him he was an arrogant berk, and the next his school things were spread across her table as he helped her with her Transfiguration homework. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t felt the need to prove her hatred of him to Severus anymore, or because he had changed, or maybe because she had.

“Go on then, Potter,” she said. “Give us your secrets. How’d you do it?”

“The mist?” he asked, ruffling his hands through his messy black hair rather nervously. “It’s because I’m such a spoilt brat, I suppose.”

“Ah, you were listening to me all those years!” Lily said in mock-surprise.

James grimaced. “Against my will, yes.”

“I couldn’t even manage the _mist_ ,” said Peter gloomily.

“I couldn’t either, don’t worry about that,” interjected Mary. “Flitwick said it would take us all weeks to get it.”

Flitwick proved to be right. They returned to Charms week after week, trying and failing to produce anything resembling a Patronus.

“I thought I had something that last time,” Lily said to Mary over dinner one evening after class. “It looked a bit bigger than a dog, but I couldn’t tell what it was before it disappeared.”

“Well done, you. What’d you think of? Extra treacle tart?”

Lily snorted. “No, I tried that for weeks to no avail. No… I thought about Christmas actually.”

The previous Christmas, both Lily and Mary had elected to stay at Hogwarts. Lily had told her mother it was because she needed to study for her final exams (a boldfaced lie, given that sixth year wasn’t even an exam year), but really it was because she didn’t want to have to pretend to get along with Petunia to prevent her mother from crying. To their surprise, James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus had all also stayed. They’d been rather cagey about why (though Lily suspected she knew). They’d all stayed up late into the night on Christmas Eve, playing Exploding Snap by the fire and getting increasingly gigglier over the bottles of Firewhiskey Sirius had mysteriously provided.

Mary shot her a look dripping with meaning. “Oh you did, did you?”

Lily furrowed her eyebrows. “Yes, it was a lovely Christmas, wasn’t it?”

“Oh yes,” said Mary sarcastically. “Very lovely.”

Lily dropped her fork to her plate. “Alright MacDonald, I’m not dense. What are you getting at?”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Oh Lily, _come on_. You’re clever. You know what I’m getting at.”

“I’m quite sure I’ve no idea what you mean.”

“Your almost corporeal Patronus is about _Christmas_. _Last Christmas_.”

“I know,” said Lily, growing annoyed. “I don’t understand why that’s-“

“Because of _James_!” Mary nearly shouted, causing the boy in question to look over at them inquisitively from halfway down the table.

“Oi, MacDonald, what’re you saying about me over there?” he called.

“Nothing!” she said, grinning.

James narrowed his eyes at her playfully and shot a quick smirk at Lily before turning back to his mates, who looked as though they were in the midst of some sort of debaucherous planning session.

Mary waited for James to fully turn away before turning back to Lily. “Well?”

Lily felt the Great Hall had become rather warm. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Am I, though?”

“ _Yes_ ,” replied Lily emphatically. “Because I think you’re implying that I-“

“Fancy James? Yes. Yes I am.”

Lily felt a flush creep across her cheeks. “And what exactly gives you that idea?”

“I couldn’t _imagine_ what would give me that idea.”

Lily was about to retort that no, she couldn’t either, when she paused. She supposed that _maybe_ , to an _outsider_ who had _no knowledge_ of her or James or their history or anything at all, their exchanges _might_ under _some circumstances_ be considered _vaguely_ flirtatious. Maybe. “Well, you’ve got the wrong end of it. I just like taking the mick out of him, that’s all.”

“Hm,” said Mary. “Okay.”

“I might’ve been a bit _hasty_ about him, before,” she explained. “Like I was trying to prove I was loyal to Sev, or something, so I hated him even though I didn’t really know him. But he’s not bad… he’s funny.”

“Yes,” Mary agreed, still with an infuriatingly knowing look on her face. “Funny.”

“We get on,” she added, feeling strangely propelled to explain herself further. "But it's not... I don't fancy him."

“Yes, well,” said Mary, with an air of finality. “I’m glad.”

“What?” asked Lily, wrong-footed. “Why?”

“Because he’s a bit too posh and rich, you know?” said Mary, with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Well, yes, but he’s not really like that, not like Wendell Greengrass or Jonathan Abbott,” she reasoned.

“No, not quite as bad as that, but he’s just… I find him a bit annoying,” she said, shrugging.

“You do?” asked Lily. “I thought… well, I don’t know, I thought once you got past all the blustering arrogance that he’s sort of… funny.”

“Funny, hm. You’ve mentioned.”

“And he’s been really great lately, with the Head Boy duties, and being Quidditch Captain and all that,” said Lily.

“That’s just inflated his ego, that has,” she remarked, pointing at Lily with her fork full of mashed potatoes.

“No it hasn’t!” said Lily, feeling decidedly cross now. “He’s told me loads of times that he hasn’t any idea why Dumbledore gave him the job, thinks he’s barking.”

“Has he?” said Mary, still sounding decidedly unimpressed. “Hm, well. All the same, it’s for the best that you’re not interested in him.”

Lily narrowed her eyes, suddenly suspicious. “You like James. You always have done.”

Mary’s face split into a wide grin. “Not as much as you do.”

Lily glared while Mary collapsed into a fit of giggles. “That wasn’t nearly as clever as you think it was.”

“No?” asked Mary, still giggling. “Tell me you weren’t annoyed at me for having a go at him.”

“I wasn’t…” said Lily, but it was no use, because _she was_. “That doesn’t mean anything, I’d be annoyed if James had a go at you and I’m sorry to break it to you, but I don’t fancy you either.”

“I’m heartbroken, truly,” Mary replied dryly. “Fine, then answer me this, Lily. What exactly were you thinking of when you cast that almost-full Patronus today?”

Lily opened her mouth and then shut it again. Finally, she spluttered, “It… I don’t… I just thought of the whole night, there wasn’t anything _specific_ ,” she lied, like a liar.

Mary raised her eyebrows, as though she didn’t believe her for a moment. She pointed at her with her fork again rather threateningly. “I don’t mind if you lie to me, so long as you aren’t lying to yourself.”

“I’m not lying to anybody,” she lied.

_Christmas, 1976_

_“I was being_ targeted _,” James slurred, pointing a dramatic finger at Lily. The six of them were lounging around in a rough circle on the floor of the Gryffindor Common Room, the fire low in the grate. There were multiple empty Firewhiskey bottles scattered haphazardly, the result of a rather competitive game of Exploding Snap they had just concluded._

_“I don’t know what you mean,” said Lily, failing abysmally to stifle her giggle._

_“Why was it that whenever it was your turn, it exploded in my face?” he demanded._

_“Is that really abnormal, though?” muttered Sirius._

_“I suppose if you_ were _being targeted, and I’m not saying you_ were _,” she replied cheekily, “one would imagine that you might have deserved it.”_

_“I feel sick,” Peter interjected. “Does anyone else feel sick?”_

_“Please don’t get sick on the loo carpet again,” Remus warned. “I’ve only just replaced it after last year.”_

_“I think I’ve…” Peter got up suddenly and scurried to the staircase, his hands clamped over his mouth._

_They all watched him go, and Remus sighed heavily. “I should probably make sure he’s alright. It’s getting late anyway.” He bid them all goodnight, and a Happy Christmas._

_“Excuse me,” retorted James, turning back to her after saying Happy Christmas to Remus, “This is slander, I deserved nothing.”_

_Mary snorted. “Come off it, Potter, this is fair retribution for making her sprint up to the Astronomy Tower on a dare.”_

_“That was Sirius!”_

_“Cheers, mate,” said Sirius, giving James a small salute._

_“Oh,” Mary hiccoughed. “It was? Oh, you’re right, it was.”_

_“Prongs would never make Evans do anything that might make her angry,” continued Sirius, lounging back on his elbows lazily. “He’s too terrified.”_

_This struck Lily as extraordinarily funny, and she threw her head back, laughing. “Terrified? Of… of… me?”_

_James grinned at her widely. “You’re bloody scary, Evans.”_

_“Name_ one _time I’ve been scary,” she challenged._

 _“Well, when I even so much as_ mention _that I think the new_ Banshees _album is sub-par-“_

_“That is because it’s the most shit opinion I’ve ever fucking heard.”_

_“It’s an_ opinion _, I don’t see how you can say an opinion is-“_

 _“Have you even_ listened _to “Bed of Wands”?! That song is a masterpiece!”_

_“Here they go again,” Mary groaned. “I can’t listen to this again, I’m off to bed too.” She waved at them all, taking an extra moment to pat Lily fondly on the head, and tottered over to the girls’ staircase._

_“Just because there’s one decent song on the album doesn’t mean the whole thing is good,” James continued._

_“_ One _decent song?” she exclaimed furiously. “One?!”_

_“What, you think “Bed of Wands” cancels out “Heartbreak Magic”?”_

_“Okay, so that song isn’t their_ best _-“_

_“See!” exclaimed James triumphantly. “She admits it!”_

_“That doesn’t prove anything,” she said witheringly. “If one good song doesn’t make the whole album, than one okay song doesn’t ruin it!”_

_“Face it, Evans, my taste in music is just better than yours.”_

_“Says the bloke who was once whistling “Spell Sparks” during Herbology.”_

_“That song is a jam and you know it.”_

_“I didn’t know a person could be this wrong,” she said, throwing her hands up in frustration._

_Sirius sighed loudly. Lily jumped, having nearly forgotten he was still there. “You two are so oblivious it’s actually painful. I’m leaving. Are you coming, Prongs?” He asked it in a bit of teasing tone, as though he didn’t expect James to come with him in the slightest._

_James stared at him, and they seemed to exchange some sort of understanding wordlessly. Sirius smirked, but then turned to her and said, “Happy Christmas, Evans! Don’t stay up too late. Be good, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and all that.”_

_She rolled her eyes at him, but smiled all the same. “That doesn’t really narrow anything down, Black!” she called, smiling fondly after him, trying to remember what it was that she’d so hated about Sirius Black before._

_“I don’t know,” said James thoughtfully, returning to their argument as though there had been no interruption, “You seem to believe that Potions is an enjoyable subject, and that sets a very high bar for wrong opinions.”_

_Lily snorted. “Just because it’s the only thing in your charmed existence that doesn’t come to you easily doesn’t mean the subject is worthless.”_

_“Wow,” said James, “if you squint really hard that almost looked like a compliment.”_

_“You need new specs, mate.”_

_“But these make me look so fit.”_

_Lily laughed loudly. “Is that what they’re for, purely aesthetic purposes?”_

_“No, they help me see things clearly, too,” said James, sitting up and leaning his back against the squashy armchair, “Like how fit I am.”_

_“Oh my god, I really hate you.”_

_“No you don’t,” said James, stretching his arms as he yawned. “You love me.”_

_“No, I’m fairly certain I hate you,” she said dryly, though with none of the disdain she might have done a year before._

_James held a hand to his chest. “And here I was thinking you were enjoying my company.”_

_“What on earth gave you that idea?” said Lily, grinning._

_Lily didn’t remember in the morning how long they’d sat there, bantering back and forth about complete and utter nonsense (“I bet I know about more secret passages than you,” “How many times will I have to tell you that I don’t care a whit about professional Quidditch?”). It certainly felt very late when she, covering her yawn with her hand, said “I’d better be off to bed, then.”_

_“Yeah, me too,” James agreed. He stood and pulled her clumsily to her feet. She hadn’t felt nearly so drunk when she was sitting down, but standing up she felt like a newborn deer on a spinning ride. She gripped James’ arms for support and he chuckled, though he didn’t feel too stable himself._

_“I knew you couldn’t hold your liquor as well as you looked,” he smirked. “I was feeling all emasculated over there.”  
_

_“Shut up, I’m stone cold sober you arse.”_

_“Sure you are,” he said, rolling his eyes._

_He helped her over to the girls’ staircase, their walk clumsy and stilted. She grinned up at him tipsily, gesturing up the staircase. “You can’t come any further unless you fancy going for a slide.”_

_“I know. You going to be alright?” he asked, genuine concern appearing on his face._

_“I’m fine,” she said dismissively. “Happy Christmas, Potter.”_

_“Happy Christmas, Evans,” he replied._

_They both pulled one another into a hug at the same moment, something that felt entirely natural in their drunken state but about which Lily would feel confused in the morning._

_“You are completely brilliant,” James slurred, almost whispered in her ear._

_Lily felt goosebumps erupt on her arm, and a a strange swooping sensation in her stomach as his clean, woody scent filled her nose._

_She pulled back and smiled up at him, enjoying how his hazel eyes caught the firelight. “G’night James.”_

_“Night, Lily.”_

She felt completely and utterly _stupid_. How could she have failed to notice? How could it have escaped her usually keen mind that she was _stupidly, annoyingly, ridiculously_ smitten with James Potter?

Once she weighed the idea of fancying James in her mind, the way she might consider a particularly difficult Arithmancy equation or a complicated Trasfiguration theory, the evidence was all there.

She found stupid reasons to talk to him, even when he wasn’t talking to her directly. She always felt strangely tingly and lighter after bantering back and forth with him. Her eyes strayed to him every time he stretched or rumpled his soft-looking hair. Hell, she’d even grown to enjoy Quidditch, something that, up to this year, she’d found tolerable at best, because she enjoyed watching _him_.

And that strangely jittery feeling she’d always thought was annoyance? How was it that she could have failed to identify it for what it was – _attraction?_ How had she never noticed before how annoyingly fit he was? He had a long, thin nose that his perpetually crooked specs were constantly slipping down, and hair that was wild and disheveled and soft. He had a dimple in his left cheek when he smiled. She thought he might have caught her staring more than once at his stupidly toned forearms when he rolled up his sleeves in class.

But more than that, there was something just inherently _charming_ about James Potter, something about the way he carried himself that was magnetic. He was quick to a joke, and even quicker to a witty jibe. He laughed easily, and loudly, and didn’t seem to have a trace of self-consciousness in him. What she had once mistaken for arrogance, she now saw was something a bit closer to over brimming with confidence. It was a fine line, but she’d come to realize that there was a difference between being sure of yourself and thinking you were better than everyone else. James certainly thought he was brilliant, but he thought other people were brilliant, too, and was quick to tell them.

It was as though she’d been putting together pieces of a puzzle for years without ever once stepping back to look at the picture she was making.

Of course, she did not share the conclusions of her investigation with Mary. For one, she didn’t think she could stand the smug look that would inevitably light up Mary’s face. For two, she didn’t quite know whether she wanted to _do_ anything about this newly discovered attraction to him yet.

And lastly, perhaps worst of all, it occurred to her that James had not asked her out in nearly two years, and quite possibly was over the schoolboy crush he’d had on her when he was fifteen.

On the whole, she thought it best to keep this to herself, for now.

If, until she made a decision, she continued to flirt with him rather shamelessly, ignoring Mary’s pointed looks, well, who cared?

“Your jokes are terrible,” she told him, even though they weren’t.

“If you keep showing off like that, your head will get too big and it’ll fall right off,” she said, even though she’d found his ability to catch and throw the book Sirius had hurled at him with shocking accuracy to be overwhelmingly attractive.

“Do you _ever_ stop eating?” she asked him, feeling wildly overjoyed that he’d sat next to her at lunch.

She kept finding stupid reasons to touch him. She grabbed his arm when he made to steal her potatoes, and left it lingering there longer than she should. She shoved him playfully in the shoulder. She nudged his knee with her own when she wanted to share a look after Peter had said something absurd.

She found herself daydreaming about increasingly ridiculous scenarios she was sure were informed by a combination of romantic comedies and romance novels, in which James would confess his undying love and snog her senseless. Her dreams took on decidedly less romantic and rather _steamier_ tones, that made her blush fiercely when she saw him lick his spoon the next day at breakfast.

If James had cottoned on to her newfound abandoned flirting with him, he didn’t show it. James was one of those people who just sort of oozed charm and seemed to flirt with nearly everyone, so it was difficult to tell whether he was flirting _differently_ with her. She hoped he was.

God she hoped he was.

“Alright, Evans?” he said, throwing himself down next to her on the squashy couch in Gryffindor Common Room, a butterbeer in hand and a grin on his face.  
“Congratulations on your win, Captain,” she said, having to shout over the sound of the raucous victory party surrounding them.

“We played well, didn’t we? I’m really pleased with how well they’re coming along,” he said happily.

“Yes, but _you_ stole the show,” she said, wondering if she might as well write “I FANCY YOU” in bold letters across her face for all the subtlety she was displaying.

He winked at her. “Ah, but that isn’t anything new, is it?”

“Oh shut up, you were mediocre.”

He laughed, throwing his head back. “Excuse me, I thought you just told me I ‘stole the show.’”

“Yes, well that’s before you were being an arse about it,” she said cheekily, taking a sip of her own butterbeer. “How’d you get to be so mediocre, anyway?”

“My dad,” he said at once. “He was great, back in his day. And he loved teaching me, we’d be outside in the backyard throwing the Quaffle around for ages when I was a kid.”

Lily smiled, ignoring the pain in her chest that inevitably came with anybody talking about fathers. “He sounds brill.”

“Nothing on you though, Evans,” he said, nudging her.

She felt her face heat up and quickly took another sip of her butterbeer. He didn’t know what saying things like that _did_ to her.

“I meant to tell you, I wanted to erect a statue in your honor after what you said to Ainsworth yesterday,” said James, grinning at her appreciatively.

She smirked, the feeling of his praise washing over her like a warm blanket. “What an utter arsehole, eh? Must’ve been a real toss up for him, choosing between teaching and belittling women as a profession.”

James snorted and murmured his assent. “He’s a twat. Anybody with any sense knows you’re top in the year.”

Lily laughed. “You wipe the floor with me in Transfiguration.”

“Yes well, you run circles around me in Potions.”

“I thought you said Potions was a stupid subject?”

“An opinion I stand by, by the way. But you still murder me in it.”

“Mm, well, drop Ainsworth an owl reminding him kindly of that, won’t you?”

“It’ll be in tomorrow’s owl post.”

“Cheers.”

“At least he’ll be gone within the year,” said James consolingly.

“Do we know that for sure?”

James shrugged. “None have lasted longer than that, I don’t see why this arsehole should break the trend.”

“I wish Professor Whitmore would have stayed, I liked him,” said Lily.

James shrugged. “Professor Appleby was far superior.”

“ _What_?” she said, turning in her seat to stare at him incredulously. “Whitmore gave us all those practical examinations, those were dead useful!”

“Yes but Appleby had the _experience_ , she knew what it was like to be out there fighting.”

“Name one useful thing Appleby taught us.”

“Easy. What it was like to be out there fighting.”

“Oh my god, you are ridiculous,” said Lily, rolling her eyes. “Sometimes I think you disagree with me just because you like riling me up.”

James smirked slyly at her and took a sip of his drink.

“Oh my god, you do! You disagree with me on purpose!” Lily tried to sound angry, and ignored the fact that she felt rather elated, instead.

James burst out laughing. “Can you blame me? You’re fun to argue with.”

“Everything is a lie. I don’t even know what opinions are real. Is your name really James Potter?”

“Guilty as charged. And, well, now, don’t get _angry_ with me Evans, but I might…” he paused, his lips pressed together in amusement, “ _possibly_ like the _Banshees_ a bit more than I let on.”

“Oh my god, I wish we never met,” she said, tossing her hair in an anger she did not feel, not even troubling to hide the grin on her face.

“For shame, Evans. That’s just not true.”

And damn it. It wasn’t true in the slightest bit.

She pretended she couldn’t see Mary’s smug smiles at her from across the room, as she and James continued to chat for far longer than was strictly necessary, sitting snugly together on the couch.

If she’d had any question about her feelings for James Potter, they were dashed when she finally managed to produce a full Patronus in their very next Charms lesson. Of course, it had come after concentrating hard of the feeling of warmth and pure buzzed excitement she’d felt in James’ arms at Christmas, with a bit of post-match Quidditch party euphoria mixed in.

Her Patronus was beautiful – a glowing, silver doe. She felt an unreasonable fondness for it immediately, even though she knew it was a bit stupid given that it wasn’t exactly _real_.

The whole class had stopped to watch it canter around the classroom – it really was beautiful. After sharing an excited look with Mary, she turned to look at James (and God, didn’t that say it all?), expecting him to grin at her and yell “Nice one, Evans!” but instead met his eyes and felt as though she’d been struck by lightning.

He was staring at her so intensely that it took her breath away. James, usually with a smirk or a grin on his face, was transformed as he gaped at her. Time stood still as they held each other’s gaze, and she lost awareness for anyone else around her. His hazel eyes were positively boring into hers, a fierce, longing, blazing look in them, his face entirely unreadable. An ache filled her chest that she didn’t understand. She felt compelled to say something, to ask him _what_ he was staring at her for, but the words wouldn’t come. Her Patronus disappeared with a small pop.

“Very good, Miss Evans! Ten points to Gryffindor!” squealed Flitwick from another universe, who seemed entirely unaware of the trance that two of his students were under. With great effort Lily ripped her eyes away from James’ to look at Sirius, expecting to share a bewildered look with him, but he was staring at her oddly too.

The bell rang, and Lily jumped. She turned to look at James again, but he was throwing his things into his bag rather unceremoniously and was already hurrying out the door. Sirius, Remus, and Peter all followed after him, sparing her odd glances over their shoulders.

Lily turned back to Mary, who was staring between Lily and the door the four of them had just left confusedly. Mary lifted Lily’s bag and handed it to her. “What was _that_?”

“Let’s not talk here,” muttered Lily. They hurried from the room (James and his friends were long gone) and made their way to the courtyard. It was cool, given that it was mid-October, but it was bearable.

“Did something _happen_ between you two?” Mary asked immediately when they were out of earshot. “Because if something happened and you didn’t tell me about it I swear I-“

“No!” Lily squawked. “Nothing happened, I have no idea what that was about. But he was definitely looking at me weird, wasn’t he?”

“ _Weird?_ No, Dev Kushner looks at me weird. I don’t have a word for how he just looked at you.” She eyed Lily suspiciously. “You’re _sure_ nothing happened?”

Lily snapped her fingers, as though suddenly remembering something. “Oh, right, we did get married in the loo right after Potions, I’d forgotten. _No_ , of course nothing happened.”

“Fine, fine,” said Mary, appeased. “But Merlin, he wasn’t even looking at me and even I got all flustered.”

“D’you think he was angry with me? Because I produced the Patronus first?”

“He’d be a complete git if so. And besides, he didn’t really look… angry.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so either.”

Mary shrugged helplessly. “Maybe you should talk to him.”

“Right, that’d be a great conversation. ‘Hello James, any particular reason you looked at me as though you’d seen a ghost in Charms today?”

“Yes, because ignoring it will be so much better.”

“I agree, thank you.”

Mary shook her head.

Lily had to admit that perhaps Mary had been right about the best course of action where James was concerned. If she’d thought they could pretend that strangely intimate moment in Charms had not occurred and simply go back to normal, she was sorely mistaken.

James wouldn’t even _look_ at her. In fact, she had the vague suspicion he was actively avoiding her. He wasn’t at dinner, and though she felt a bit vain even thinking that his absence had anything to do with her, for some reason she thought maybe it did. He wasn’t in the Common Room when she got back either.

Her vague suspicions were confirmed when he spent the entirety of the next two days without a single word to her. She’d tried vaguely to call after him one day after Transfiguration, but either he hadn’t heard her, or he’d pretended not to.

Lily was getting a bit angry about it all, to be honest. As far as she could tell, she’d done nothing wrong. She had no idea why she was getting the silent treatment from him and didn’t appreciate it.

And more than that, she felt a pathetically bereft without his jokes in the Common Room every evening, his warm presence at mealtimes, the looks they would exchange with each other in class. She hadn’t fully appreciated just what a large part of her life he’d become until he quite suddenly was completely absent from it.

“He won’t even _look_ at me,” she complained to Mary one night in their dormitory. Mary was lounging on her bed reading the latest _Witch Weekly_ , and Lily had just come out from her evening shower.

“I know, what is his deal?” said Mary, looking up from her magazine. “I’ve never seen someone commit so hard to being a complete weirdo.”

“And I still haven’t the foggiest what I even _did!_ ” she moaned in frustration.

“Well, let’s think about it,” said Mary thoughtfully. “This definitely started in Charms when he basically eye-fucked you in class, right?”

“I object to your description, but yes, that is when it started.”

“And he definitely wasn’t weird with you at all before class?”

Lily thought back. “No, we had a perfectly normal conversation at lunch that day, he even sat next to me, remember?”

Mary smirked. “I didn’t remember. Okay, so then it has to be something in Charms, mostly likely candidate being your Patronus, right?”

“Right, but I can’t think why my bloody Patronus would cause this much of a headache,” she said, flopping onto her bed miserably.

“Perhaps he has some undisclosed deer-related trauma.”

Lily snorted. “What, d’you think he watched _Bambi_?”

“The first ten minutes of that film are fucking depressing, what a downer.”

“Somehow I don’t think this is it.”

“No,” Mary agreed. “Maybe he thought you were rubbing it in his face or something?”

“Maybe,” said Lily hesitatingly. This seemed the most obvious answer, and yet she couldn’t help but reject it. Whatever James’ expression had been, it hadn’t been envious or angry.

What about her Patronus could make him look at her like that?

“Oh my god,” she said suddenly. “Oh my god, he must _know_.”

Mary looked at her quizzically. “Know _what_?”

“He must’ve overheard us! At dinner last week! He must know that I was thinking about Christmas with him when I cast it,” she groaned, her heart positively sinking into her stomach.

“So you _were_ thinking about him!” said Mary triumphantly. “I knew it!”

Lily shot her a withering glare. “Is now the time?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“He must know that I was thinking about that, and he must be ridiculously uncomfortable around me now, because he knows!”

“He knows…?” Mary prompted.

“Are you going to make me come out and say it?” said Lily, chucking her pillow at Mary.

Mary batted it away easily. “Yes, I think I am.”

“I bloody fancy him, alright? Are you happy? I fancy him _a lot_ , so much that he’s become my fucking _Patronus material,_ and he knows, and apparently this knowledge has made him decide he can’t ever speak to me again!” Lily whined.

Mary gave her a pitying look. “Oh Lily, I really don’t think that’s what it is.”

“Well, what else _could_ it be?” she demanded.

“Anyone with eyes, other than you apparently, can see that James is mad for you.”

“Anyone with eyes can see that he hasn’t so much a spared me a glance in three fucking days,” replied Lily darkly.

Mary sighed. “You know what the solution is, don’t you?”

“Drop out of school and become a secretary like my prig sister?”

“No, you absolute idiot,” Mary chided. “ _Talk to him_.”

Lily turned over and buried her face in her remaining pillow. “But that would be humiliating.”

“You don’t have to tell him you fancy him, you can just ask why he’s being an arse,” Mary pointed out.

“But what if the _reason_ he’s being an arse is because he doesn’t want to make me feel badly when he completely rejects me.”

Mary sighed loudly. “You are utterly impossible.”

“I think I’ll just start avoiding _him_.”

“What a solution,” Mary muttered. “You two are a match made in heaven, you are.”

After five full days of complete silence, Lily had to admit that her plan had its drawbacks, most notably that avoiding James had done nothing to improve her mood. She found herself staring at the back of his head in Herbology, willing him to turn around and to make a joke about Snargaluff pods.

He didn’t.

 _This is so unfair_ she thought, as she sat observing Remus, who was reading his Transfiguration textbook at a table in the Common Room later that day, flanked on either side by Sirius and Peter. James, who had apparently taken to avoiding the Common Room, was conspicuously nowhere to be seen. He wouldn’t even come to the bloody Common Room anymore, lest he, god forbid, _see her_.

This was stupid. Ridiculous. She’d rather him just reject her outright than this infuriating _silence_. She’d officially had enough. She marched over to the table the boys were sitting at, anger and fierce determination quelling any embarrassment she might’ve felt.

“Where is he?” she demanded of Lupin.

“Lily,” said Remus, looking up alarmed at her expression. “I… who?”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Filch, I’d love to have a chat with him.”

“I assume you mean James?”

“Obviously.”

Remus glanced shiftily around the room.“Er… he… I don’t know.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Remus.”

Sirius snorted. “Isn’t he?”

Remus glared at him, but Lily turned to Sirius, instead. “Where is James, Sirius?”

“In the library,” said Sirius immediately.

Remus glared at him more fiercely. “Sirius, he said he didn’t-”

“He’s being an idiot, he can’t avoid her forever,” said Sirius irritably. “And I don’t think he’s got a good reason for it anyway.”

“So he is avoiding me? He told you that?” asked Lily, her heart sinking pathetically. Had he told them _all_ about her feelings, then? Had they all had a laugh about pathetic Lily and her unrequited affections? The thought made her want to crawl up to her dormitory and drown herself in chocolate.

Remus shot an absolutely filthy look at Sirius. “No, Lily, he didn’t say that.”

“Really?” she sniffed. “Because he hasn’t spoken to me in five days. I’m not stupid; Sirius didn’t tell me anything I don’t already know. Anyone care to tell me _why_ he’s avoiding me?”

The three of them exchanged looks, but remained silent.

“He… he…” stammered Peter eventually. “He just needs to study, said we bother him when we talk so much.”

“Fine,” she said, the blatant lie causing her anger to bubble over. “ _Fine_. Don’t tell me. I’ll ask him. You said he’s in the library?”

They nodded, looking a bit fearful of her expression, and Lily turned on her heel and marched out of the Common Room and to the library, her anger growing with every step.

She’d finally admitted to herself that she fancied this idiot, and then he went and inexplicably avoided her for days on end. She didn’t care if she thought he was being chivalrous or whatever dumb idea had gotten into his head about rejecting her. Avoiding her like this was just _cruel_. 

She found him in the very back corner of the library, his nose in a rather large book she thought might have been History of Magic. She paused, feeling her heart flutter in her chest annoyingly at the sight of him. He was too fit for his own good.

Mustering all of her Gryffindor courage, she marched over to his table and threw herself angrily into the chair across from him, fixing him with the meanest glare she could manage.

“Lily!” he squeaked, pulling his book to his chest as though to shield himself from attack. “What’re you-“

“Why’ve you been avoiding me?” she asked bluntly.

“I haven’t been-“

“Yes you have.”

“I didn’t mean-“

“Yes, you did,” she said, smacking her hand on the table. “You haven’t been at meals, you haven’t been in the Common Room, you haven’t so much as looked at me in days, and if you want to continue to deny it, Sirius came right out and _told me_ you were avoiding me.”

“He did? The git, why would he say that?”

“Because it’s true!” Lily shouted as loudly as she could in a whisper. “You _are_ avoiding me.”

“I… I’m sorry,” he said, looking rather helpless. He wasn’t quite meeting her eye, and if she looked more closely she thought there was a faint flush on his cheeks.

“Are you… are you angry with me?” she asked more quietly. “Did I do something to upset you?”

“No!” he said immediately, his eyes finally snapping to hers in alarm. “I’m not angry with you at all. Merlin, no, of course not.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s nothing, I’ve just had some things on my mind. I wasn’t avoiding _you_ specifically,” he said, again looking shiftily down at the table. He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“Okay…” she said, hope bubbling in her stomach. “If that’s true then you don’t have to tell me, obviously. It’s just that it _seems_ like you’re avoiding me specifically. After… after Charms.”

Seemingly against his will, his eyes snapped up to meet hers. She felt her face heat when they met. He didn’t _look_ angry, or even apologetic. He looked… well, he looked almost _guarded_.

He swallowed. “Er… yeah. Yeah…”

“So you’re avoiding me because I produced a Patronus?” she said. She’d rather he just got it over with and told her now.

“No! Well, not… no.” He looked even more uncomfortable now.

She growled in frustration. “It certainly _seems_ like it. You haven’t so much at looked at me since I cast it.”

He ran his fingers through his hair so it looked even more handsomely disheveled than it already had, his expression almost anguished. “It’s just… nothing, I swear it isn’t anything you’ve done. I’ll go back to disagreeing with you on purpose tomorrow, I promise.”

She smiled. Her beating heart almost wanted to leave it at that and get out of here before she died of heart palpitations, but something kept her glued in her chair. “You’re really not going to tell me?”

“It’s a bit…” he seemed to consider his words carefully. “Awkward. To explain.”

“Okay…” she said, her heart plummeting. What could be awkward to explain, other than that he realized she was pathetically smitten with him and had somehow known her Patronus was about him? She might die on the spot. She reminded herself that she’d decided this was preferable to silence.

It was preferable, wasn’t it?

“But it had something to do with my Patronus?”

“Er… sort of.”

“Did you hate it or something? Have you got a secret fear of deer?” she said, throwing out Mary’s wild suggestion from earlier.

James found this inexplicably funny, and let out a burst of laughter that echoed in the silence around them. “No, no I definitely am not afraid of deer.”

“Then _what is it_?” she asked, feeling desperate and frustrated and increasingly embarrassed. “It’s always going to bother me that I upset you somehow and I’m going to feel weird, especially because we’re doing Patronuses for _three more weeks_ and I want to keep practicing without feeling like I’m _bothering_ you or something, or making you uncomfortable and that’s the last thing that I meant to-“

“Making me uncomfortable? What… Ugh,” he groaned, looking pained. “Fine, I'll... Lily, my Patronus is a stag.”

“You’re just being… What?” she said, confused. “What does that… Oh.” She felt her face heat up. _His Patronus was a stag_.

“Yeah. Oh.” He looked even more fidgety than he had before, refusing to meet her eye. “And when you cast yours… it just… it freaked me out, alright?”

There were several beats of silence in which Lily was not sure what to say or think.

“Your Patronus is a _stag_?” she managed finally.

“Yes.”

“How do you know that, I’ve never seen it in class!” she asked, almost hysterically.

He looked shifty for a moment, and did not answer her right away. “Er… I’ve been practicing outside of class.”

“Well, well…” she struggled uselessly. “I don’t see why that means you’ve had to avoid me!”

He looked at her incredulously. “You _don’t_?”

“No!” she said, and she thought she might be panicking now. _His Patronus was a stag. And hers was a doe._ The creeping insecurity snuck back. Was this not further confirmation that she was right? The idea that their Patronuses matched was so repulsive to him that he was reduced to hiding in the library to avoid her presence?

James looked skyward, as if searching for deliverance. “Fine, if I’m going to say it, I’m going to say the whole damn thing because it’s useless to get this far and to stop now. You’re sure you want to hear it?”

He sighed and met her eyes as she nodded, a determined look on his face. “Your Patronus is a doe and mine is a stag, and they say that Patronuses are supposed to represent your inner-self or some rubbish like that, which all would be fine except for the fact that I’ve…” He paused his rushed speech to pull at his hair, looking pained. “I’ve fancied you _so much_ for _years_. And I know you just want to be mates, and I was doing fine with that, really, but something in me just snapped when I saw that your Patronus was a doe because _of course_ it bloody is. It’s like the universe is playing some massive joke, saying ‘Look, she’s even more perfect for you than you already thought!’ And this is all a bit heavy, isn’t it? Matching Patronuses? So, I don’t know how I’m meant to just chat shit with you and be your mate like it doesn’t matter because it _does_ but I can’t really explain why and so that’s why I’m… hiding. In the library.” He finished with a huff and looked down at his hands, fidgeting uncomfortably with his quill.

Lily thought her face must be the color of a tomato. She was having trouble processing it all. _His Patronus was a stag and hers was a doe and he’s fancied her so much for years and she was perfect for him_. It all felt so very _big_. She’d only just realized she fancied this ridiculous, arrogant, funny, messy idiot a few weeks ago, and now their Patronuses were a matched set. She vaguely remembered a paragraph about matching Patronuses in the textbook, and words like “soulmates” and “powerful emotional connection” were bandied about.

She got it, all at once, why he’d been avoiding her. Sitting here, across from him, it made her feel like she was on some precipice on the verge of falling. But she wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t want to fall.

James ran his hands through his hair again anxiously.. “Lily, you’ve got to say _something_ , I’m going to die over here.”

She looked up to see that indeed, James looked more vulnerable than she had ever seen him. Abruptly, the irony of the situation struck her, and she began to giggle. It was a relieved, giddy thing, because _James fancied her_ , and he looked so _nervous_ to have told her this, but she’d thought he was avoiding her because _she fancied him_ and…

“Er… Evans? Not that this isn’t utterly hilarious, but…”

“No, James, no, I’m sorry. I’m just laughing because it’s so… this is so… _our Patronuses match_. And you were afraid because you thought I didn’t… and I was afraid because I thought _you_ didn’t…” she covered her mouth.

“Thought I didn’t what?” he asked, looking very confused.

“You’ve got it wrong,” she said, smiling, a happy bubble forming in her chest. “I don’t just want to be mates at all.”

“You don’t?” asked James, looking suddenly hopeful.

“No. Perhaps you should have checked back in with me after I stopped calling you an arrogant berk all the time. Then you might’ve known I’ve sort of got this huge _thing_ for you,” she explained, still smiling.

James looked momentarily stunned. Then, a smile began to spread across his face, and damn it all if her heart didn’t flutter at the sight of it. “You… you do?”

“Yes, you utter idiot. And it’s all so funny because… because I thought were avoiding me because you’d figured it out and were trying to let me down easy.”

“Then I’m not the only idiot at this table. Did you honestly not know?” he said, smirking at her in the way she loved. “I’ve never exactly been subtle.”

“Well you charm _everybody_ , Potter.”

“That is purely incidental. I’ve only ever tried to charm you.”

“Well, it worked.”

James was smiling so happily and it felt like sunshine on her face. “You’re annoyingly beautiful, you know.”

“You’re stupidly fit, like who looks like you?” she said, gesturing to him weakly.

“You’re irritatingly clever.”

“I always told you I hate your hair but really I love it.”

“Your eyes are bloody amazing, like are those even allowed?”

“You made me like watching _Quidditch_ , and I don’t even care about Quidditch.”

“I love arguing with you.”

“I look for reasons to insult you just so I can talk to you.”

James looked far happier than she had ever seen him. He was staring at her with such a softness in his eyes that her heart immediately felt warm. “God, is this actually happening? Like, you’re not joking right now?” he asked. “Because if so, this is a very cruel joke.”

“Not even a little, I was pathetically sad without you for the last five days.”

And then he stood up and strode around the table and his lips were on hers, and _damn it all_ if it wasn’t better than she’d imagined. She lifted herself up to her feet, wrapping her arms around his neck as his hands found her waist. She hummed contentedly against his lips. All she could smell was the clean, woody scent she’d come to associate with his jumpers. He was kissing her so meaningfully, and so deeply that she suddenly understood the concept of going weak at the knees, something she’d always thought was something idyllic reserved for romance novels. She felt as though she were melting. She ran her fingers through his soft, messy hair, and she felt him smile against her lips.

After several moments, he pulled back, resting his forehead on hers. They were both breathing rather heavily, their eyes searching one another.

“Go out with me?” he asked on a breath.

“Obviously.”

He pressed his lips back down to hers and Lily thought she might float away from happiness.

When they walked back into the Common Room (some time later), it was to find their friends all clustered together by the fire. Mary was the first to spot them, and their entwined hands.

“There you are!” called Mary, and they all looked around. “Did you two finally figure out you fancy each other?”

Lily rolled her eyes, while James grinned and yelled. “Cheers, MacDonald.”

They walked over and sat down together on the remaining seats, Lily feeling a bit embarrassed at the attention but warm and happy all the same. James draped his arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him, feeling at once completely giddy and like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Thank god,” said Mary. “Your flirting was getting unbearable.”

“At least you didn’t have to hear about it,” said Remus, trying to look exasperated but grinning at them all the same. “You know I like you, Lily, but I don’t need to hear about how wonderful you are anymore.”

Lily looked up at James, who was flipping Remus off. He didn’t even look remotely embarrassed. “I refuse to feel ashamed for speaking the truth.”

“So, you’ve got to tell me, Potter,” asked Mary imploringly. “What was with the disappearing act the last few days? Your friends are loyal gits, by the way, they wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

James laughed, and squeezed Lily’s hand. “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Fine, I’ll get it out of Lily.”

But she didn’t have to. Though Lily tried her best not to share what she was sure Mary would declare to be “completely, disgustingly, romantic,” in the end, Charms did it for them.

The very next class, neither Lily nor James had much trouble conjuring their Patronuses. Lily thought it might have had something to do with the slew of happy memories they had accrued over the last few days.

The stag and the doe found each other almost immediately, and cantered around the classroom in tandem, looking all the world like they belonged together.

Mary shot her a look that was a cocktail of amusement, glee, and disgust. “Oh my god, I think I might actually vomit.”

“You and me both, MacDonald,” Sirius called from across the classroom.

The class laughed, and even Professor Flitwick shot her a knowing look. But Lily found that she didn’t very much care, because James had wandered over to her and wrapped his non wand-arm around her waist. He dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

She was very happy, just then. She didn’t quite know how to tell him just how happy he was making her, so she settled on, “You’re much better than Scrivenshafts.”

James looked a bit confused, but then grinned all the same. “Well, I bloody hope so.”


End file.
